*It's just like that moment in Gid's Muggle comics when the character runs off the edge of a cliff, and for just a moment stands perfectly suspended in mid-air. It's like that. Everything freezes as the pit of Fabian's stomach plumets out, as Gid's hand goes slack and he crumples, gone, just like that. For the very first time in his entire life, Fabian is alone, and the half-a-heartbeat that it takes to feel it stretches for years and ends far too soon. Unable to breathe, unable to see through the sting of tears and sweat suddenly blinding him, he clutches with his free hand at his brother's shirt. He's still warm but he isn't breathing, and that doesn't make sense, doesn't factor in at all to the very framework of Fabian's world. How can he be - ?

The word is what does it. He can't bring himself to think it but the meaning is there, heavy and sick and immutable, and the rage, the loss that crash on him are more blinding than the salt stinging his eyes. With a sound that's past articulation, that's barely human, he heaves himself up and straight at the Death Eaters, bringing his wand slashing violently down in an arc at the one who took away the other half of him.*